Dist. 16
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/3/d/16/q/bon-sent-III-d16-littera
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### DISTINCTION XVI.

### Chap. I. *On certain obscure chapters of Hilary, by which sorrows seem to be removed from the flesh of Christ.*

Nevertheless, what move us more, and raise a more difficult question, are the words of Hilary, by which he seems to hand down that blows and wounds and the like so befell Christ that they did not inflict the sorrow of passion — just as a dart, drawn through water or fire or air, does those things which it also does when it is drawn through animate bodies, namely, that, because it pierces and pricks, it does not nevertheless cause sorrow, since those things are not capable of sorrow. So too he says that the body of Christ received the force of punishment without the sensation of punishment, because, just as our body does not have such a nature that it is able to tread the waves, so he says that the body of Christ did not have the nature of our sorrow, because it did not have a nature for grieving.

For he says in the tenth book *On the Trinity*: « The Only-begotten God took on a true man according to the likeness of our manhood, not falling away from himself as God. In whom, although a blow might fall, or a wound descend, or knots concur, or hanging lift him up, these would indeed bring the *impulse* of passion, yet they would not inflict the *sorrow* of passion; just as some dart piercing water, or pricking fire, or wounding air, inflicts indeed all these passions of its own nature, so as to pierce, to prick, to wound, but the passion inflicted does not retain its nature in this, since it is not in the nature of things either for water to be bored, or fire to be pricked, or air to be wounded, although it belongs to the nature of a dart both to wound and to prick and to bore. Christ indeed suffered, while he is struck, while he is hung up, while he dies; but the passion rushing upon his body both was and was not a passion, yet it did not exercise the nature of passion, since the punishment raged on with a penal service, and the power of the body without the sensation of punishment received the force of the punishment raging within it. That dominical body indeed had the nature of our sorrow, if our body has it of its nature that it tread the waves and go over the waters above and not be hindered by the obstacles of a closed house. But if it is the sole nature of the dominical body that it be borne upon moist things and stand upon liquids and run across solid structures; how shall we judge, by the nature of a human body, the flesh conceived of the Holy Spirit? That flesh is from heaven, and that man is from God, having a body for suffering, and he suffered, but not having a nature for grieving ». The same in the same place: « Let us see whether that order of the passion permits weakness of sorrow to be understood in the Lord. For setting aside the causes by which heresy ascribes fear to the Lord, let us compare the things themselves, as they were done. For it cannot be that fear should be signified in the words of one whose confidence is contained in his deeds. Did he then, O heretic, seem to fear the passion? But on account of the error of this ignorance Peter is both *Satan* and *scandal*. Did he fear who came forth to meet armed men? And was there weakness in his body, at whose approach the dismayed bands of his pursuers fell down with bodies overthrown? What weakness, then, do you believe to have mastered this body, whose nature had so great a power? But perhaps he feared the sorrow of wounds? What terror, I ask, O you who assert the Lord's weakness, did he have of the nail piercing his flesh, who restored the severed ear by a mere touch? And does this hand, producing them, feel pain at the nail, and does he feel a wound who did not leave to another the sorrow of a wound? Is he sad with fear of his flesh being pierced, at whose touch the flesh is healed after the blow »? Likewise: « When therefore the powers of his words and deeds are compared, it is not doubtful to demonstrate that in the nature of his body there was no weakness of bodily nature, and that that passion, although it was inflicted on the body, did not nevertheless bring upon the body the nature of grieving; because, although the form of our body was in the Lord, yet the form of our vitiated weakness was not in the body which the Virgin brought forth from the conception of the Holy Spirit ». — You have heard, reader, the words of Hilary, by which he seems to exclude sorrow. But if, having shaken off the dullness of sense and of impiety, you attend diligently to what has been set forth and inspect the very context of the scripture; you will be able somehow to perceive the ground and force of the things said, and you will not attempt to accuse his understanding. For he is understood to have said, with this reasoning, that the sorrow of passion did not befall Christ, and that the power of Christ's body received the force of punishment without the sensation of punishment, because it had not in itself the cause and merit of sorrow. Which he seems to have noted where he says: « Not having a nature for grieving ». And therefore his flesh is not to be judged according to the nature of our body; nor did passion have dominion in it either; so too it did not have a nature for fearing, or for being made sad, because it did not have such a nature in which there was the cause of fear, or of sadness. And so the necessity of fearing was not in him, as it is in us; nor was the nature of sorrow in him, as it is in us.

### Chap. II. *On the sadness of Christ and its cause, according to the same author.*

That sadness nevertheless was in him, he asserts consequently, but that the *cause* of it was not his own death, but the failing of Peter and of the other Apostles. For he says that Christ was sad not *because of* death, but *unto* death, in these words: « I ask, what it is to be sad *unto* death. For it is not of the same signification, to be sad *because of* death and *unto* dea-

th, since, where there is sadness *because of* death, there death is the *cause* of the sadness; but where there is sadness *unto death*, death is not the *cause* of the sadness, but its *end* ». « And so sadness was so far not undertaken because of death, that it is destroyed by death ». « Therefore he is sad not for himself, but for those who through the weakness of the flesh were going to be in scandal, whom he warns to pray, lest they be *led into temptation*; who had before promised that they would not be scandalized ».

NOTULA. Hilary in the book *On the Synods*: Though these kinds of passions afflict by the weakness of the flesh, God nevertheless, the Word made flesh, could not by suffering become changeable in himself. For the Word, because it was made flesh, although it subjected itself to passion, was nevertheless not changed by the possibility of suffering. He was able *to suffer*, and could not be *passible*, because *passibility* is the signification of an infirm nature, while *passion* is the enduring of those things which are inflicted.

### Chap. III. *Whether there was in Christ a necessity of suffering and of dying, which is a general defect.*

Here arises a question deriving its origin from what has been said. For it was said above that Christ took upon himself our defects except sin. Now there is a certain general defect of man which is not sin, namely the *necessity of suffering*, or *of dying*. Whence our body is called not only *mortal*, but also *dead*, because it has not only the *aptitude* for dying, but also the necessity. Therefore it is asked whether such a *necessity* was in Christ's body. For concerning the aptitude for dying, that it was in him, there is no doubt, which also was in man before sin, when there was no defect in him; nor therefore was that *mortality* then a defect in him, because it was natural to him. Whence also some, not improperly, hand down that such *mortality* in us is not a defect, but the *necessity* of dying, or of suffering, which also is called *mortality*, or *passibility*. For man is now called *passible*, or *mortal*, not only on account of *aptitude*, but also on account of *necessity*. But was this defect in Christ's flesh? Did his soul too, since it was *passible* before death, have a *necessity* of suffering? For if a *necessity of suffering*, or *of dying*, was in Christ, he does not seem to have received our defects by the will of compassion alone. — To which it can be said that Christ undertook these defects, like the others, by *will*, not by the *necessity* of his nature, namely the necessity of *suffering* in the soul, but at once of *suffering* and *dying* in the flesh. But he did not have this necessity from the *necessity* of his condition, since he was immune from sin, but received it from his *will* alone, placing, out of our weakness, *his tabernacle in the sun*, that is, under temporal mutability and labor. Whence on the Epistle to the Hebrews the authority says that « just as it is appointed for other men by the right and law of nature to die once, so also Christ by the same necessity and right of nature was offered once, and not often ». Nor does he say *by right of nature* because he drew this defect from the nature of his condition, which also does not come to us from nature as it was first instituted, but from nature vitiated by sin. And therefore this defect is called *natural*, because it grew in as it were in place of nature, diffused into all.

### Chap. IV. *On the states of man, and what Christ received of each.*

And here it is to be noted that Christ received something of every state of man, who came to save all. For there are four states of man: the first before sin, the second after sin and before grace, the third under grace, the fourth in glory. Of the *first* state he received immunity from sin. Whence Augustine, expounding that saying of John the Evangelist, *He who comes from above is above all*, says: « Christ came from above, that is, from the height of human nature before sin, because from that height the Word of God assumed human nature, while it did not assume guilt, whose punishment it assumed ». But he assumed punishment from the *second* state and the other defects; from the *third* the fullness of grace; from the *fourth* the *not being able to sin* and the perfect contemplation of God. For he had at once certain goods *of the way* and goods *of the fatherland*, just as also certain evils *of the way*.

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